Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Barney Frank (D-MA) have sent are circulating a new letter to the President, requesting a personal meeting with him about nominating Elizabeth Warren as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This is an escalation of the earlier action spearheaded by Maloney, which resulted in 63 members of the House and 12 Senators coming out in support of Warren’s nomination.

“I just think that the success of the agency depends on the strength at the top,” Maloney told FDL News before releasing the letter. She cited the support for the initial letter, which not only brought 75 members of Congress on board, but unleashed a slew of positive editorials from newspapers and opinion leaders around the country. By contrast, “the pushback has not been all that visible… kind of quiet,” Maloney said.

The Treasury Department and the President himself have had nothing but praise for Warren, a Harvard professor and head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with monitoring TARP. But while she is recognized for inventing the concept of a consumer financial protection agency, and lauded for her work in bringing it into being, Administration officials have stopped short of a full endorsement, though she is on the short list for the position. Others on the list include Treasury Department official Michael Barr.

In the letter, available below, Maloney and Frank particularly note the words of Charles Fried, the former Solicitor General in the Reagan Administration, who wrote in the Boston Globe that the President should give Warren a recess appointment, because “restoring faith in the honesty of the system of markets and credit” is so important to the future of the economy. They quote an interview Fried granted The New Republic, where he took aim at the argument some of her detractors have been making, that she’s not experienced enough to run a federal agency:

And he accused critics focusing on her relative lack of managerial experience of acting ‘in bad faith.’ ‘That’s not a debate. That is just crass,’ Fried said. ‘People who talk about the lack of experience—that’s junk. … They’re afraid of her because she actually believes in [what she’s doing].’ He went on to note that many professors have successfully led large organizations because ‘they believed in their mission. They were smart.’”

The New Republic also noted that, “As for Warren’s ideology, Fried said she and the new consumer protection agency stand for principles that anyone, liberal or conservative, should support. ‘I support capitalism, and I don’t like thieves. And the people who got us into this mess are thieves, or there are a lot of thieves among them,’ he said. ‘To be sympathetic to people who lie and cheat and take advantage of people is not to be against capitalism.””

Calling Warren a “true visionary” and not a “careerist,” Maloney and Frank “respectfully request a meeting” with the President to discuss the nomination.

The letter has so far been co-signed by 14 other House Democrats, including Earl Blumenauer, Lois Capps, Judy Chu, Ted Deutch, Keith Ellison, Luis Gutierrez, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mary Jo Kilroy, Rush Holt, Jerrold Nadler, Charlie Rangel, Nikki Tsongas, Henry Waxman and David Wu. (UPDATE: Maloney and Frank will continue to seek other co-signers during next week’s emergency session of the House, when they will work on the state fiscal aid bill.)

This follows several other actions aimed at getting Warren the nomination. Sen. Al Franken has teamed with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee to whip members of Congress on Warren, and just today, Sen. Jeff Merkley released a video detailing why Warren would be the right person for the job.

The letter is available on the flip.

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We write to follow-up on previous letters from 63 House members and 12 Senators, dated July 22, 2010, supporting Professor Elizabeth Warren as Director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We write to urge no further delay in her nomination.

Just this week, 141 leading university professors from around the country wrote to you expressing their support for Professor Warren arguing that her scholarly expertise, “along with her work as Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, has given Professor Warren a broad, and perhaps unique, perspective on how effective consumer protection is essential for the safety and soundness of the financial system and the health of the American economy.”

The New Republic interviewed Charles Fried, former Solicitor General under President Reagan, who “praised Warren for her commitment to the issues that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would handle. After all, the bureau was her brainchild. And he accused critics focusing on her relative lack of managerial experience of acting ‘in bad faith.’ ‘That’s not a debate. That is just crass,’ Fried said. ‘People who talk about the lack of experience—that’s junk. … They’re afraid of her because she actually believes in [what she’s doing].’ He went on to note that many professors have successfully led large organizations because ‘they believed in their mission. They were smart.’”

The New Republic also noted that, “As for Warren’s ideology, Fried said she and the new consumer protection agency stand for principles that anyone, liberal or conservative, should support. ‘I support capitalism, and I don’t like thieves. And the people who got us into this mess are thieves, or there are a lot of thieves among them,’ he said. ‘To be sympathetic to people who lie and cheat and take advantage of people is not to be against capitalism.””

These strong statements of support noted above from across the political spectrum reinforce the support she will have in a confirmation vote. We already know that Ms. Warren’s work as head of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the past two years, which was created in the TARP legislation and which she built from scratch to ensure appropriate TARP oversight, has earned her respect on both sides of the aisle. And we know she understands the fundamental truth about regulation: “Regulations help support markets to make them work.”

You have an opportunity to appoint to head this body a true visionary — not the usual Washington practice of a careerist. You have an opportunity to appoint to this body the single best-qualified choice.

We urge no further delay in nominating Ms. Warren and would respectfully request a meeting with you to discuss this matter.

Barney is my Rep – and seems on the right side of every issue these days. The stuff he proposed for FinReg was great – and much got past the combo of GOP and new Dem reps and blue dogs that are on his committee.

If he pulls this off, he gets get a hand shake the next time I see him!

Amen. Just paying lip service to the cause. All in the run up to the election where the Democrats get trounced. Should have sworn this sort of backbone for the past two years. Oh wait, I’m sorry, since 2006.

I think it is pretty clear if the WH wanted Warren they would have nominated her by now. The question is can enough presser be applied to Obama to make him nominate her and if so how effective can she be without any Wh support.

An administration that calls for the immediate resignation of an innocent woman because of rumors that she will be in an unflattering piece on Glenn Beck, won’t touch Ms. Warren with a ten foot pole. She’s backed by progressives, Beck says progressives are cancers, and the administration is scared shitless of this bunch of nuts. Expect some warmed up Clinton administration official. Which will inflame GOP as well as liberals. Par for the course.

Good of people to try, but you’re talking about balls-free Obama here, a complete corporate shill, the worst thing that ever happened to the Democratic party by far, and the blogosphere by and large still acts like he’s on our side.

Remember when the loonies called him the anti-christ? True in more ways than one might think. The total co-option of the Democratic party by Wall Street interests. No way in HELL will he nominate her.

Obama won’t take a shit unless he’s got political cover, so don’t expect him to acknowledge that Elizabeth Warren exists. She’s banished to Dawn Johnsen land.

“So sorry, but we couldn’t overcome the filibuster because of the mean Republicans, and we lost seats in the November election, so I’m nominating former senator Alan Simpson, a true American hero who will keep the mean banks in line.”

I thought this clown Obama knew something about basketball. The Warren nomination should have heen a suh-lam DUNK. Hell even some R’s have let out a few grunts of approval for the woman. It would be popular across the board . . . but NOT popular w/ Goldman-Sachs and the rest of the WH benefactors. Truly, he rivals, nay exceeds, Bush in perfidy.

If he wanted her for the job, the President could have recess appointed Warren at the bill signing and told her to get to work (“ACTION THIS DAY” as Churchill would begin wartime memos). Since he still hasn’t appointed her leads one to suspect he’s torn between the bankers and the progressives. Not much suspense which one will get their way.

That’s the thing about Bush, there was no perfidy there. The man was a blunt instrument but without guile. I think he truly believed what he said, even if what he said was 180 degrees out of phase with reality. Obama knows better, and that makes him worse.

Permit me an analogy … we all know someone, let’s say a young girl (but it can be either gender of any orientation), who’s fallen in love for all the wrong reasons with the wrong person… She’s living in a bubble and is naive and gets in trouble with the wrong man because she lets her emotions rule instead of her brain. So she does something stupid because she’s a fool. Now imagine another person, who is smart and is mature enough to not to let her heart run away with her. She knows the score but she gets in trouble with the wrong man because he gives her a lot of money. So she does something stupid because she’s a whore.

Frankly on both healthcare and financial reform, I think the DC Republicans would have voted the same way even under a public campaign financing system, because their crazytalk accurately reflects their beliefs. On the other hand, the DC Democrats know better but when someone leaves money on the dresser, eh, what can you do?

It does not have to be a recess appointment. The Bill gives the treasury department the authority to appoint an interim head. That means that Obama could have Geitner appoint Warren and she would remain the department head until confirmation was completed in the Senate. That means if Lincoln, Nelson and the other Repubs filibuster she would be the head of the agency until they take an up or down vote. Even if they all voted against her she would remain in the job until they confirmed someone else. The unconfirmable excuse is just that na excuse.

I believe that the Obama administration is waiting until the Senate comes back in September to nominate one of the other Wall Street tools for the job. They are hoping that the news cycles from now to September will have most of us thinking of other things. Look to the first Friday afternoon after the August recess to name some one else.